Christmas Time
by JuseaPeterson
Summary: A Mike and Emily Christmas One-Shot.


Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

_Author's Note: This is my first time writing them so I hope I did a good job. Merry Christmas, or Happy Hanukah or whatever it is that you celebrate at this time of year._

**Christmas Time**

"No, that's wrong."

Emily looked up from the pot she was washing to see her 9 year old daughter taking sprinkles from her 5 year old daughter. Jenny looked up at her older sister with a frown, "My turn."

Emily set the pot down and went over to her two daughters, "Are we all done Diana?"

Diana shook her head, "Jenny is putting the same color on all of her cookies. It's bad enough that Toby did that."

"Well Toby wanted his cookies that way. Don't you think that Jenny should be able to decide on her cookies?"

Jenny smiled, "See."

Then Emily turned to Jenny, "It also doesn't hurt to have some help with decorating cookies, or to hear other's ideas."

Her youngest child nodded, "Okay Mommy."

Emily went back to washing the dishes. She was just about down when she heard her seven year old son, Toby, "You guys still aren't done with your cookies?"

"Some of us like to make them pretty."

"Mine are pretty!" Jenny stated.

The front door opened and before she knew it all the kids had rushed out towards the front hall. Echoing calls of 'Dad' were called out and then giggling. Emily walked to the hall just in time as Mike was moving towards the kitchen. He smiled and pulled her into a hug, "Hey Em." The two then shared a quick kiss.

Mike then turned to their kids, "Alright guys, you know what we're doing tonight?"

Jenny started jumping up and down, "Ornaments! I'm so excited!"

Mike laughed and picked her up, "That's right."

"First we'll need to clean up the mess from the cookies. Then we can start decorating the tree."

Jenny looked at Mike, "Do we have to?"

"You heard your Mother." He then leaned closer to Jenny, "I bet I can beat you in cleaning up."

The grin coming from the five year old was quickly joined by her Father and the two headed into the kitchen. Emily looked at Diana, "You too sweetie."

"What about Toby?"

"Toby cleaned up his mess already." She turned to Toby, "But would you please get the ornaments out of the garage?"

"Yes!"

Emily went back to the sink. By the time she was done with the dishes, the cookie mess had been cleaned up by Mike, Jenny and Diana while the ornaments were all in and sitting by the tree courtesy of Toby.

Emily went and turned on the radio in the living room. Sleigh Ride came on over the speakers. She turned around and saw Mike helping Jenny get her ornaments up on the tree. Diana and Toby were both already putting ornaments up. She smiled and walked over by the tree. She loved doing this. Mike had said this was what they did when he was younger and she was glad they had decided to do it with their kids.

It wasn't too long before the whole tree was covered in ornaments. There were gold balls, and little nutcrackers, there were some pictures of the kids sitting on Santa's lap that also hung from different branches. Emily picked up the tinsel and began placing it on the tree. She smiled as she remembered how one year she and her sister had only put tinsel on their tree.

"I'm done!"

Emily looked down at Toby who was smiling at her. "You finished putting up your ornaments?"

"Yep. Can I write my list now?"

"Sure. There's paper and pencils on the table."

Toby went over to the table with Emily following behind. She sat down near Toby as he wrote 'Toby's Christmas list', on the top of the paper. He then began to number to ten, once he finished he began to write 'legos' next to the number one. Emily watched as he continued down the list sometimes pausing to think about what he wanted before moving on.

Toby paused and then looked at Emily, "Mommy, aren't you going to make your list?"

Emily smiled, "Of course I am."

Emily pulled a piece of paper in front of her and grabbed a pencil. She began making a list for herself while still watching her son do his. Soon Mike came over to the table with their daughters.

"Mommy you should see the tree! It's beautiful!" Jenny said grabbing Emily's hand.

"Okay." Emily laughed as her youngest child dragged her back to the living room. The tree was laden with ornaments. Colored lights that had been put on the tree last night were flashing on and off around the pictures of the kids, or the homemade reindeer and little snowflakes, among many other ornaments. Emily knelt down so she was closer to Jenny's size, "It's beautiful. You did such a great job."

Jenny smiled and gave Emily a hug, "Thank you."

Emily nodded, "How about we go and work on that list okay?"

Jenny nodded and jumped up and down before running back to the table. Emily rejoined her family as The 12 Days of Christmas came over the speakers. Diana stopped writing and closed her eyes, "I love this song!"

Mike grinned, "Me too…there's another one, The 12 Pains of Christmas, and that is hilarious!"

Diana frowned, "What's painful about Christmas?"

He shrugged, "It's just making fun of different things, and it's for fun."

"Oh."

"Maybe we can listen to it."

"Okay."

Emily watched as Diana sat up a little bit more. Diana loved doing things her way and she loved music. She loved different kinds of music and that was something Mike and Diana would often do, listen to different types of music. She knew that Diana considered it a daughter/daddy kind of thing and Emily was glad that they shared that. It wasn't that Diana didn't talk music with Emily since she played flute and Diana wanted to play an instrument one day, but as Diana told Emily it was just her and daddy and she liked it.

It didn't take that much longer for the kids to finish their lists. Once dinner was done and they had cleaned up the messes the children all went to bed leaving Mike and Emily in the living room alone.

Emily curled into Mike as he wrapped his arm around her. She stifled a yawn as she started talking, "That was fun. I'm glad we got started earlier than last year."

"Although the fun of last year was the shopping Christmas Eve morning, so there is that which we could still look forward to."

She smiled, "No, we're going to get done early. We already decided."

"I know."

"And besides we're going to go to the Shiba House to meet up with everyone, so we have to be done early."

"You're right." She felt his lips press against her hair.

She then realized _The Little Drummer Boy_ was playing in the background, which was one of her favorite songs. She loved Christmas time it was always so full of happiness and cheer. She grabbed his hand, "I'm still going to need a list from you."

"Don't worry I've got it all worked out…I just need to write it down."

"That's what I mean."

"Alright, I will do it tomorrow morning, it's Saturday."

"We were going to go sledding tomorrow."

"I'll do it before we go. Do you have your list done?"

"Just about, have a couple more things to think about. Did you see Toby's list?"

"I did, he wants to go to the moon. I don't think that's going to happen."

"No, although Jenny wants to have a dolphin, I'm not sure if she put it on her list or not."

She felt Mike nod, "She did, it was right under a Barbie Doll."

They became quiet again and just sat there enjoying each other's company. After a while they watched It's a Wonderful Life. Once it was over Emily looked over at Mike, he had fallen asleep. She leaned over and gently touched her lips to his, "Hey."

He opened his eyes, "Is it over?"

She couldn't help the giggle that escaped her, "I don't know why you agree to watch this every year if you just fall asleep during it."

Mike stood up and stretched. He then looked down and held his hand out to Emily which she took and stood up. He pulled her closer to him, "because you like it. And you enjoy watching it."

Emily felt the warmth that always came with his compliments that only seemed to grow with each day. She wrapped her arms around Mike under the mistletoe and they shared a kiss before heading to slumber themselves.


End file.
